November 2007

Quarterly Newsletter of the San Francisco Estuary Invasive Spartina Project

Spartina

Wow! Another treatment season is behind us – and what a season it was! The ISP partners made huge ad-vances towards baywide eradication of invasive Spartina, treating more than 1,050 net acres, 99 percent of the population!

There were other important milestones. At the biennial State of the Estuary Conference in October, the Friends of the Estuary recognized the ISP’s work in supporting wetland restoration with an award to the Coastal Conservancy (see page 3). Three days later, partners and stake-holders in the West Coast’s largest tidal wetland program, the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, voted unanimously to integrate the ISP’s proposed “best practices” for tidal restoration projects into their project planning and environmental compli-ance documents (story this page).

These events reflect increased recognition of the invasive Spartina problem, and of the ISP’s leadership, expertise, and success, in collabora-tion with its many dedicated part-ners, in addressing it. While gratifying, it also underscores the urgent work still yet to be done and our responsi-bility to do it well.

Peggy Olofson

Director's Note

Focus on: East Bay Parks p. 7

New Spartina Sites p. 2

Estuary Award p. 3

Treatment Map / Kudos p. 3

Inside

Excavators breach a levee at Petaluma Marsh in 1999 opening up the area to tidal action. Con-necting marshes with the San Francisco Bay completes the final step of restoration, but it may also allow seeds and propagules of invasive cordgrass to enter and take root.

Years of persistent advocacy, planning and hard work are paying off. Those

who have advocated, fought for, planned and are now implementing the restoration of marshes and mudflats in the San Fran-cisco Estuary can be justifiably proud of successfully rescuing parts of the bay from the ecological blight of overdevelopment. Some of these projects are recently com-pleted; others will be realized soon.

Each new restored marsh that comes on line reintroduces some of the estuary’s historically rich biodiversity. Yet under present conditions, it also invites an unwelcome guest to settle and rapidly spread — invasive Spartina. These non-

native cordgrasses bring with them an array of unwelcome ecological changes to marshes and mudflats that restoration planners never anticipated.

Holding back the tideTo prevent this unhappy outcome, the

ISP has put forth guidelines for restoration managers to follow in a document called “Best Practices for Tidal Marsh Restora-tion and Enhancement in the San Fran-cisco Estuary.” (See “Key Points,” p. 4.)

Ironically, the ISP’s advances over the last two years in controlling the noxious weed have underscored its sense of urgency

Tidal Action Restoration ‘best practices’ proposed to reduce Spartina risk

continued on page 4

Photo by J. Stalker

Page � Spartina Dispatch November �007

2560 9th St., Suite 216Berkeley, CA, 94710

(510) 548-2461www.spartina.org

The San Francisco Estuary Invasive Spar-tina Project (ISP) is a coordinated regional effort to address the rapid spread of four introduced and highly invasive Spartina (cord-grass) species in our bay.

Established by the California State Coastal Conservancy in 2000, the project is progressing toward its goal of eliminating this aggressive introduced species, working in close collaboration with its many partners around the Bay. This newsletter helps keep our partners informed about project news and activities.

Current ISP funding comes from the CALFED Bay-Delta Program, the California Wildlife Conservation Board, and the Cali-fornia State Coastal Conservancy. Previous major funders also include U.S. Fish and Wild-life Service and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Project Director Peggy olofson

fielD oPerations Manager erik grijalva

fielD oPerations assistant Manager Drew kerr

Monitoring PrograM Manager ingriD Hogle

newsletter writer, eDitor & Designer stePHanie ericson

state coastal conservancy Project Manager Maxene sPellMan

ISP Partners – Current Grant Recipients

alaMeDa county Public works DePt.california DePt. of Parks & recreation

california wilDlife founDation

city of alaMeDa

city of Palo alto

city of san leanDro

east bay regional Parks District

frienDs of corte MaDera creek watersHeD

frienDs of PetaluMa river

u.s. fisH & wilDlife services, Don eDwarDs national wilDlife refuge

san Mateo county Mosquito abateMent District

New Spartina found in North Bay

San Pablo Bay

Vallejo

Benicia

Novato

CorteMadera

San Rafael

Petalu ma

River

Sonoma

Creek

NapaRiver

Petaluma

Pt. Pinole

Richmond

Martinez

Newly foundSpartinaInfestations

week after the foot survey, and will retreat them next year.

How did the plants get there? There are several possibilities, said Hogle. Bird droppings are one. The densiflora could also have grown from seed or propagules traveling down the Napa River and around Mare Island, originating from an isolated densiflora plant found in and subsequently removed from the Napa Sonoma Marshes. Corte Madera Creek in Marin County and Point Pinole, north of Richmond, both in-fested by alterniflora hybrids and densiflora, are also possible sources, as is the Petaluma River, where hybrids were discovered last fall.

“As we’ve seen from the drift card study, the floating seeds can move quite a distance on the tides,” said Hogle. She was referring to the ISP’s recent use of buoyant wooden cards cast into the bay to simulate how seeds might travel from one bay loca-tion to another. “That’s why we’re trying to survey everything that has tidal influence and any potential habitat for Spartina.”

Aside from the locations noted above, alterniflora hybrids have also been found and treated on the west side of San Pablo Bay at a single isolated site along the Novato bayfront, adjacent to Hamilton Field.

To the east along the Carquinez Strait, Benicia State Recreation Area is home to Southampton Marsh. It is the only known location of another variant of invasive cordgrass, Spartina patens, in the San Fran-cisco Bay Area. This site is monitored and treated annually. n

Two new small popula-tions of invasive Spar-

tina were spotted along the northeast edge of San Pablo Bay by ISP monitoring staff in August. DNA test results in early October confirmed the presence of a single Spar-tina alterniflora hybrid plant, the most common invasive cordgrass in the Bay Area, and a cluster of eight Spartina densiflora plants, also inva-sive, three kilometers further southeast.

The newly found infesta-tions lie midway between the mouths of Napa River and Sonoma Creek. Most of this bayfront area, including the new Spartina site, is part of the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Ref-uge, owned and managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In contrast to the San Francisco Bay to its south, San Pablo Bay has seen com-paratively little invasive Spartina on its shores and connecting rivers and creeks. Knowing how easily invasive Spartina can spread, however, and sometimes pop up in unexpected places, the ISP monitors this northern estuary regularly.

“Although it hasn’t really gotten here yet,” said ISP director Peggy Olofson, “it would only be a matter of time… All the invasive Spartina species would be perfectly happy here in the North Bay were they to become established.”

“We really credit the airboat for being able to see it this year,” said ISP Monitor-ing Program Manager Ingrid Hogle, refer-ring to a vessel provided by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The airboat aids greatly in efficiently scanning areas by shallow waters. “This stretch all along here is huge. Walking this area would take several people many days.”

Once the genetic results were in, the ISP notified the Refuge, whose staff joined the ISP in scouring the Bayfront by foot, when they discovered a couple more densi-flora plants nearby. Since no other infesta-tions were found during this thorough foot survey, ISP staff concluded that these are isolated invasive Spartina patches. The US-FWS treated these patches with herbicide a

Spartina Dispatch November �007 Page �

A recent award honoring the ISP’s work highlights growing recognition of the

Spartina threat and acknowledgement of the project’s achievements.

Presented to the California Coastal Conservancy by the Friends of the San Francisco Estuary at the 2007 State of the Estuary Conference in mid-October, the award was one of ten honoring “outstand-ing Comprehensive Conservation Man-agement Plan implementation projects,”

and one of two in the category of aquatic resources management.

The CCMP was established by the San Francisco Estuary Project to meet water quality goals in estuaries outlined in the Clean Water Act. The SFEP is among 20 estuary programs in the nation.

“The selection committee… was very impressed with the fact the program had 60-95 percent effectiveness (in treatment), that it expected total eradication by 2011, and that it had found an effective method to ac-complish this,” said SFEP Communications and Marketing Director Joan Patton.

Without successful treatment, invasive

Spartina threatens nearly 70,000 acres of marsh and mudflats in the San Francisco Bay Estuary, potentially eliminating most nest-ing and foraging habitat for migratory birds and creating other harmful environmental effects. Large-scale aggressive treatment un-der ISP coordination began in 2005 and this year included nearly all of the known infes-tation. Intensive retreatment will continue for the next two years, with spot treatment becoming the norm in 2009.

The ISP coordinates with partners around the entire Bay, many receiving grants from the California Coastal Conser-vancy to conduct Spartina control. n

Estuary advocates laud ISP work

SouthamptonMarsh

Petaluma River

PickleweedPark

Two PointsComplex

MarinOutlier

Corte MaderaCreek Complex

Blackie’s Pasture

EmeryvilleCrescent

Alameda / San LeandroBay Complex

Coyote Crk / MowrySlough Complex

Alameda Flood Channel& Ideal Marsh

Whale’s TailComplex

San Leandro / HaywardShoreline Complex

Colma Creek / SanBruno Complex

West SanFrancisco

Bay Complex

Cooley LandingPalo Alto Baylands

Bair & Greco Island Complex

South Bay Marshes Complex

Spartina Infestation Areas

Treated Areas

San Francisco Bay Estuary2007 Spartina Treatment Season

Not drawn to scale.Untreated areas of infestation make up less than 3 acres.

Thank you, partners and field staff!Another productive Spartina control

season is wrapping up, and none of the successes seen this year would have been pos-sible without the often difficult and some-times dangerous work of ISP Grantees and Spartina control contractors. Dealing with sometimes conflicting restrictions regard-ing access, timing, permitting, equipment availability, weather and tides, ISP partners continued to show commendable flexibility and zeal throughout the year.

High on the list are the folks at the San Mateo County Mosquito Abatement District, East Bay Regional Parks District, City of Alameda, City of San Leandro, Friends of Corte Madera Creek Watershed, Alameda County Department of Agricul-ture, Alameda County Public Works, Santa Clara Valley Water District, Clean Lakes, Inc., Aquatic Environments, Inc. and West Coast Wildlands, Inc. Without the efforts of these groups and many others, Spartina control within the San Francisco Estuary would not be possible. Thanks again to everyone who was involved in this year’s Spartina control effort.

Kudos as well to our Spartina monitor-ing crew for accomplishing data collection and editing in record time this field season! We completed transect-based treatment efficacy monitoring at 53 sites, recording data at 30 plots per site. We inventoried invasive Spartina at 113 sites, with a total of over 5,500 GPS locations recorded! Our monitoring crew will still be in the field this winter, collecting data to inform our photo-interpretation-based inventory at an additional 50 sites around the Bay. Thank you for all of your hard work! n

Page � Spartina Dispatch November �007continued on next page

over the matter, as its staff faces the pros-pect of seeing its progress undermined in a potentially never-ending game of catch-up.

“We’re so close to achieving eradica-tion of the existing hybrid population, but the one thing that could preclude that achievement is to add new sites of spread-ing infestation,” explained ISP director Peggy Olofson. While control is moving quickly forward, she said, there is desire, and perhaps need, in some cases, for res-toration to proceed even faster.

“So there becomes a need to balance the risk of additional infestation spread against the benefit of having the restora-tion projects completed,” she said. The ISP has no desire to halt most restoration tasks, such as building trails and prepar-ing the marsh surface. Its focus is on the final step, breaching the levees to open the marsh to tidal action, which introduces the risk of infestation.

Rush to restoreThe fears are grounded in recent his-

tory. From the west side of the bay (Cooley Landing, Stevens Creek Tidal Marsh, Outer Bair Island and others) to the east (includ-ing Eden Landing, Martin Luther King and Cargill Mitigation marshes) initially uninvaded restoration sites soon began to host small patches of non-native Spar-tina. These rapidly grew and spread during subsequent years, sometimes coalescing into solid meadows of non-native clones. Among the invasive variants, a very hardy and aggressive hybrid between non-native Spartina alterniflora and native Spartina foliosa, increasingly predominated.

“Every restoration site in the South Bay since 1980 has been invaded by hybrid cordgrass, every single one,” said Debra Ayres, research scientist at the University of California at Davis. South Bay refers to area below the Bay Bridge. “The threat of invasion is real.”

The perfect seedbedAyres points out that seeds can float

for long distances and long periods of time, especially when joined together in large rafts. Drift cards released by ISP staff to study how seeds and propagules might disperse in bay currents tend to confirm this; more cards will be released as the investigation continues.

So far, results show that the cards tend to drift toward the east and south, sometimes crossing the Bay. The longest distance travelled within the Bay was al-most 18 miles, but one card floated 26.5 miles from Corte Madera Creek in Marin County to the ocean coast near Pacifica.

“Anything connected by water is vulnerable,” Ayres said.

Restoration sites are particularly so, she asserted, and pointed to the 15,100-acre South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, the largest wetland restoration project on the West Coast, as an ex-ample. Raising the existing salt ponds to a full range of tidal marsh elevations creates ideal conditions for seedbeds of cordgrass to establish, contends Ayres.

“At the end of long channels, there’s no rip and pull from tidal action that might otherwise tear out wrack or inhibit their establishment,” Ayres said. The soft sediment and lack of competition from other vegetation also contribute to rapid Spartina growth at such sites.

Ayres takes a hard line on preven-tive measures. She advocates a halt to opening any new marshes until all inva-sive Spartina is eliminated from the bay. To allow any restoration site to open now, she said, is a set-up for failure. In addition to everything else, she cautions that the plant has shown an impressive ability to undergo evolutionary changes over a short period of time to help it thrive.

Growing consensusNot surprisingly, restoration man-

agers have a somewhat different per-spective. However, those involved in restoration efforts over many years are well aware of the danger and support taking preventive action.

“The (proposed) best practices are various elements of good judgment that

Tidal Actioncontinued from page 1

Photo by Bob DyerIf not properly checked and cleaned, dredge barges, such as this one on the Petaluma River, can unwittingly carry invasive Spartina seeds and propagules to new sites.

Best Practices Key PointsThese are a summary of the ISP’s proposed “Best Practices for Tidal Marsh Restoration and Enhancement in the San Francisco Estuary.” Full text at www.spartina.org.

1.Donotplantnon-nativeSpartinaatanytime.

2.VerifygeneticsofnativeSpartinaplantings.

3.DonotplantnativeSpartinawhereitmaybecomepollinatedbynon-nativeSpartina.

4.Monitorfornon-nativeSpartina(includinggenetictests)andpromptlyremoveorkillit.

5.Completeabsenceofnon-nativeSpartinaisnecessarytoconsiderrestorationprojectsuccessful.

6.Donotopennewmarshes(i.e.,maketidalconnections)“toonear”non-nativeSpartina.(Earlierdrafthad2-milelimit.)

7.Takeprecautionstopreventspreadthroughcontaminateddredging,excavationandotherequipment.

8.Avoidpotentiallycontaminateddredgedmaterial.

9.VariationstothesepracticesmaybedevelopedinconsultationwiththeISPaccordingtosite-specificconditions.n

Spartina Dispatch November �007 Page �

Photo by D. Kerr / ISP

Tidal Actioncoontinued from previous page

need to be applied,” said Steve Ritchie, ex-ecutive project manager for the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project. “The real fundamental principle of the best prac-tices is that as you engage in restoration projects, be very cognizant of the degree of risk and act appropriately.”

Ritchie says he feels comfortable with the present draft of ISP’s proposed guide-lines and plans to put them in the project’s legally required environmental impact statement and report in reworded form.

“I think restoration can and should go forward in a very thoughtful way,” he said.

“We opened up the Island Ponds,” he continued, referring to three former salt ponds along Coyote Creek at the southeast tip of the Bay. “So far that has proved to be positive action. We will continue to moni-tor that, but so far there’s no Spartina.”

“Invasive Spartina is just one of many challenges out there,” he continued. “We need to take them all into account. Stop-ping the universe to take care of one prob-lem ignores others … (such as) endangered species that run the risk of extinction.”

Clyde Morris, refuge manager of the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge also supports ISP’s pro-posal. The refuge, founded and adminis-tered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-vice, covers 30,000 acres of diverse estuary

and upland habitat. Refuge staff have been actively working with the ISP to control Spartina on its land.

“I think they’re excellent best manage-ment practices and everyone should be following them to pre-vent the spread of this invasive species,” Mor-ris said. “I appreciated that the Spartina team had the ability to consider variations on these practices on a site specific basis. It’s really important for the agencies that propose to do resto-ration to meet with the ISP to determine what circumstances would allow them to proceed.”

This theme of site specific flexibility was a common thread in discussions with ISP staff and led to changing its sixth guideline. Instead of proscribing all new tidal connections within two miles of any invasive Spartina, it adopts more nuanced language referencing specific site condi-tions, acknowledging that a reasonable de-termination of risk may be more complex

than simple distance alone.

Required or voluntaryFlexibility is also cited as an argu-

ment for making the guidelines voluntary instead the basis for permit conditions, the ISP’s original plan.

“I’d rather it not be a part of a permit process,” said Morris. “It’s something I’d like to have incorporated in our environmental

Underestimating the Spartina threat is easy to do. The experience at Cooley

Landing, located in San Mateo County south of Dumbarton Bridge, is a case in point, but hardly unique.

As partial mitigation for a Superfund clean-up site, the Cooley Landing project encompasses 120 acres of mostly wetland restoration begun in the mid-nineties.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had recommended a requirement of zero percent presence of invasive Spartina at the end of the project to the permitting agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, recalled Mike Rafferty, principal engineer for S.S. Papadopulos and Associates, Inc. The firm manages the site’s restoration work.

After much discussion, the agencies agred to 5 percent.

“Certainly the breadth of Spartina problem wasn’t obvious at the time when

my client agreed to that,” said Rafferty.Inside the levees, the pond had sub-

sided and supported a small amount of pickleweed and little or no cordgrass within the pond, although large stands of cordgrass grew around it, he said. Originally they were mostly native plants that gradually became dominated by hybrids.

The levees were breached, the marsh opened up to tidal action in 2000. After one year, they found some non-native Spartina, which they proceeded to “spray and whack,” said Rafferty. The next year they found still more.

In 2003, the restoration project stopped spraying the weed. This decision came in response to changes in pollutant discharge permit regulations resulting from a lawsuit, said Rafferty. ISP interpreted the changes as having no legal impact on their project, a conclusion subsequently confirmed. But in

the interim, the legal confusion stopped many partners from spraying glyphosate herbicide that year as the infestation expanded substantially in the absence of treatment.

In 2005, ground treatment resumed, this time using the herbicide imazapyr, with its application to 70 percent of the existing cordgrass. Late-season applications along with access problems also contrib-uted to another disappointing outcome.

Control of Spartina turned around in 2006 when 38 acres, 90 percent of the infestation, was sprayed aerially in coordination with the San Mateo County Mosquito Abatement District, killing 70 percent of the treated plants. In 2007, 22 acres were again treated aerially, covering all resprouting, previously missed clones and some buffer areas. Results are pend-ing, but ISP staff is optimistic. n

A bumpy ride at Cooley Landing

San Mateo County Mosquito Abatement District personnel get drenched with water spray as they maneuver their hovercraft, while others, above, apply herbicide mixture with backpack sprayers. This vessel allowed the district to treat some areas of Spartina that were missed last year because of diffficult access.

continued on next page

Page � Spartina Dispatch November �007

Tidecontinued from presvious page

impact statement so we’re committed to it, but this gives some more flexibility than with the permitting process.” He cites Bair Island as one case where special circumstances should be considered. (See below.)

“The proposed best practices assists resource managers and the regulatory com-munity who are making decisions about individual restoration projects,” said Amy

Hutzel, San Francisco Bay Program Man-ager at the California State Coastal Con-servancy, the ISP’s parent agency and a key resource agency for estuary projects.

Hutzel was sympathetic to restora-tion managers’ concerns.

“You spend years developing a plan for your site,” she said. “You work through the stakeholder process, do your environment analysis, get your permits, create plans and justifications and put

One marsh restoration site that some say merits a more flexible application of ISP’s proposed guidelines is Bair Island, a former salt pond complex in the South Bay. The reason? It harbors not one major pest, but two — Spartina and salt marsh mosquitoes.

The 2,000-acre site is part of the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. A part of what’s known as Outer Bair Island was previ-ously opened and subsequently heavily infested by invasive cordgrass. Although the site’s two other sections — Inner and Middle Bair Island — won’t be prepared for tidal action for two to five years, the remaining portion of Outer Bair Island is ready now.

However, while effective treatment has reduced Bair Island’s Spartina problem sub-stantially, it has not eliminated it. The non-native weed also grows on other sites nearby.

Mosquitoes weren’t a prob-lem until after salt production stopped, said Chindi Peavey, vector ecologist with the San Mateo County Mosquito Abatement Dis-trict, which conducts all Spartina control within the county for the ISP.

“But the problem begins as vegeta-tion grows up and you don’t have a tidal flow,” Peavey explained. The vegetation calms the wind that would otherwise stir up trapped rainwater sufficiently to dis-courage mosquito breeding. Then cracks form in the marsh bottom, providing nice shelters for the pest, she said.

Two types of salt marsh mosquitoes inhabit Bair Island, and between them, they plague neighboring cities over the course of most of each year.

“It has a huge impact on Redwood City, Belmont, San Carlos and beyond,” said Peavey. “The mosquitoes can fly up to 15 miles to find a host, and they

are voracious biters. We get swarms of them, and when we are unable to get out and treat (the breeding areas), we get hundreds of calls from people, and they are really angry.”

Once the levees are breached, the ebb and flow of the tides will dramatically diminish mosquito-breeding habitat. But it is not this fact alone that Peavey and others contend justifies letting in the tides before Spartina is com-pletely eradicated there.

“I think the guidelines are perfectly reasonable and good,” she said. “The important thing is that someone monitors for cordgrass and…has some kind of plan to control it.”

Because district person-nel are out at Bair weekly for mosquito control, they can

regularly monitor for the invasive cord-grass as well, Peavey said. Moreover, their past Spartina treatment work provides the necessary experience for continuing effective monitoring and control of it.

Peavey hopes the district will be able to work out an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the ISP to allow tidal connection next year in return for its commitment to monitor and control the cordgrass until complete eradication. n

Bair Island – A Tale of Two Pests

out to bid. You need some security that the contractor will be able to make that final levee breach at the end of the process.”

But for mitigation projects, which typically involve developers and other busi-nesses that have little stake in the long-term success of restoration efforts, Hutzel be-lieves the permit process would be the safest way to ensure that such best practices are followed, a view also held by ISP staff.

Unfinished businessThe San Francisco Bay Conservation

and Development Commission (BCDC) may be the most likely regulatory agency to consider permit conditions like these. BCDC’s Chief of Permits Bob Batha ex-pressed general support for the idea, but said some of the protocols need more work and clarification.

“Most of the recommendations make a lot of sense, but I have some questions about how some of these would be worked out,” he said, particularly regarding the genetic testing requirements.

“There’s nothing quite akin to that in any regulatory program in our agency or in the Army Corps of Engineers as far as I’m aware,” he explained, “So there may be some (political) resistance, although I re-ally understand the reasoning behind it.”

“This needs to be developed a little further,” he continued. “Is the Spartina project going to do the testing or are the project proponents going to do that test-ing? These are the types of questions I have.”

For this reason he proposes a regional forum between resource agencies, regula-tory agencies and also possibly large-scale restoration programs and private consul-tants to elaborate the guidelines further and develop greater consensus around them before adoption as permit conditions.

Indeed ISP staff acknowledges that many questions remain, including who pays for Spartina eradication under various circumstances, such as when restoration managers have followed ISP recommenda-tions and when they have not.

While much still needs to be worked out, ISP staff hopes that the growing con-sensus around the need for guidelines will provide the necessary momentum to move forward quickly, at least more quickly than Spartina can spread. n

The winter salt marsh mosquito and hybrid Spartina both plague

Bair Island.

Spartina Dispatch November �007 Page 7

At Coyote Hills Regional Park EBRPD naturalist Dino Labiste discusses invasive Spartina and other ecological issues with teachers in its Coast Alive! Educators Academy class. The park borders the Alameda Flood Control Channel, site of one of the largest hybrid Spartina infestations. Public outreach on the issue is an important part of EBRPD’s Spartina work.

Without the dedicated work of ISP part-ners, totally eradicating invasive Spartina from our bay would not be imaginable. In this and upcoming issues, we will look at in-dividual agencies and community groups that have taken on this challenge.

With over 1,700 square miles of parks and preserves in Alameda and Con-

tra Costa counties, it’s no surprise that the East Bay Regional Parks District manages many marshes, mudflats, and creeks that have been infested by non-native Spartina.

Fortunately, the district takes a leading role in eradicating the invasive weed from the bay, treating large areas in Hayward, Martin Luther King and Oyster Bay re-gional shorelines, Point Pinole Regional Park and Eastshore State Park.

Fisheries Program Manager Pete Alexander, East Bay Parks’ point person for Spartina control, remembers the park district’s earliest efforts to control its spread during the early nineties.

“We tried burning it, covering it, and spraying it with the aquatic herbicide, Rodeo® (glyphosate),” he recalled. But the park district was primarily looking for an effective non-herbicide approach at the time.

“Covering worked pretty well, but it had limited applications,” he said. “We could only cover clones less than four-to-five meters in diameter.” However, many

of their clones were already coalescing into meadows, requiring larger mats that became too heavy to later remove as they filled with sediment.

They also experimented with spray-ing clones with glyphosate, then “weed-whacking them out,” followed by spraying subsequent new shoots, said Alexander, an approach that improved glyphosate’s effec-tiveness, but was labor-intensive.

Meanwhile, Alexander saw the infesta-tion grow from affecting about 50 acres of

the park district’s land to about 1,500 acres a few years ago. He noted that the spread was greatest in restoration sites, including those of the park district, which he said, had the “dubious distinction” of displaying the first infestations in the East Bay.

“So much money was spent on restoring tidal areas,” he recalled, “but not as much thought put into what would happen when

they opened to tidal action.”Alexander credited the switch three

years ago to the more effective imazapyr herbicide, marketed under the name Habi-tat®, with helping the district turn the corner with Spartina control.

At the same time, the agency overcame some initial hesitancy about using herbicide on a large scale. Its marshes contain some of the most densely populated communities of a couple of endangered species that had come to use invasive Spartina as habitat.

“We were concerned how it would impact the California clapper rail and the salt marsh harvest mouse,” explained Alex-ander. “The feeling was that Spartina was aiding their survival.”

However, evidence presented in ISP’s en-vironmental documents indicated that in the long run invasive Spartina would harm these species. And even in the short term, eradica-tion has had some positive impacts, allaying some of the park district’s earlier concerns.

“Personally, I think the harvest mouse is doing very well,” said Alexander, noting it enjoys the protective cover of pickleweed, a plant that seems to be unaffected by imazapyr and may increase with Spartina’s demise. Alexander said that clapper rails still tend to congregate most densely where

East Bay Parks’ new airboat is noisy, but very efficient for getting to the less accessible places in the district’s marshes and mudflats. Clockwise from top left are Mark Taylor, Leigh Ochikubo Chan (driving), Pete Alexander and Brian Hill.

Photo by I. Polt-Jones / EBRPD

Photo by S. Nelson-Embry / EBRPD

East Bay ParksPartner Focus

East Bay Parkscontinued from previous page

SanFrancisconEstuaryInvasiveSpartina Project25609thSt.,Suite216Berkeley,CA94710

Spartina grows or where its dead thatch remain after treatment.

“Hopefully, there will be other areas opening up that some of these rails can move into successfully and where other plants that create the type of cover that clapper rail like can get established,” he said.

The park district was also mindful of public opinion.

“Pesticides are not always considered the best routes to take,” Alexander said. “We spent quite a bit of time to make sure the public was educated as to why [non-native Spartina] was a problem and why we chose the solutions we did.” The parks district organized interpretive hikes on the Martin Luther King and Hayward shore-lines, and created and posted interpretive signs at all the major infestation sites to ex-plain the issue. These efforts, which remain ongoing, paid off.

“The public response has been much better than I expected,” said Alexander. He also credits the City of Alameda’s early pub-lic education work as “leading the way” for community acceptance of Spartina control.

The city owns the Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary but the park dis-trict manages it. Located at the south end of Crown Beach, it lies close to homes and contains one of the largest infestations in that part of the Bay.

Currently, around six to eight park district employees engage in Spartina control, but the bulk of treatment work is carried out by contractors. Last year the district treated roughly 350 acres of infesta-tion spread over 700 acres of land. This year it only needed to treat 200-250 acres because of progress made in its Spartina control.

“They have done an incredible job this year and last on taking initiative getting the clapper rail data in order, contracting, public notification and signage and press releases, with minimal involvement from the ISP,” said ISP Assistant Field Manager Drew Kerr.

The park district, aware that reinfesta-tion threatens if neighboring landowners are less successful at eradicating the weed,

actively collaborates with other ISP part-ners—the City of Alameda, the Alameda County Public Works Department, and the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay Na-tional Wildlife Refuge. Since 2006, it also partners with the City of San Leandro to contract jointly on aerial treatments of their respective infested properties.

“They’ve taken ownership of their role in this project,” said Kerr. “That’s really essential for the success of the effort ... be-cause it’s a long-term proposition. There’s no substitute for that.” n

Hayward Shoreline Park Supervisor Mark Taylor operates the amphibious Hydrotrax in marsh areas where other vehicles would sink into the mud. Such specialized equip-ment is essential for Spartina control work.

Photo by P. Alexander / EBRPD